It doesn't seem very ethical or business savvy in building long-term business relationships, for Southwest to remove the option for gift card redemption using RR points if you are not a Chase credit card holder, (as was noted in a previous post) during an economically chaotic time. Perhaps the company is over-leveraged and might not survive economically?

I thought you had to be a cardholder to cash in for GCs.

No you don't, although the conversion rates are better if you are cardholder.

You definitely had to be an RR cardholder to use any of the "More Rewards" benefits back when "More Rewards" started. I haven't heard of any changes to this but haven't kept any focus on this either...

Changed within the past few months...don’t need a card, but better conversion for cardholders.

It it actually changed quite some time ago. Initially it was announced as a promotion, then it just stuck around, but at a slightly different conversion rate and with some options limited. Now it's back to cardholders only.

I redeemed 350k earlier this week on walmart and amazon gift cards. The cards shipped yesterday. Also redeemed my Marriott points.

The 'More Rewards' button doesn't show up for me anymore as well, even though I'm a cardholder.

Edit: looks like I can still backdoor to more rewards through https://www.southwest.com/rapidrewar...m-more-rewards

Thanks for the info, do you know what the Marriott redemption ratios are? Got too many that devalue greatly yearly and no travel in sight for a longtime, before the virus. Thanks

No, I transferred them to Southwest for 3:1 or so. Marriott didn't have the walmart gift cards IIRC

Might be a good idea to redeem points for gift cards based on this article.

https://www.dallasnews.com/business/...rim-workforce/

*this* is why in a past thread I mentioned that I had also unloaded a bunch of my points for cards when popular opinion was sort of a "wait and see" opinion. My order notification email came in this morning and all the cards I picked are in there good to go- including a bunch of Amazon cards. I did it because they were available and who knows what might happen. Well "might" happened. If they come back that's awesome. If they don't, then I'd have to move to other options that are lower in personal value to me and my family. Clearly hotel and restaurant cards are not super useful in the near term for a lot of the country.

My Chase Sapphire card can do SWA points at the same ratio or a bunch of other options including cash back. I think not being tied to a single airline for points is better for me now. I'll only do what I need to hit CP and use other cards to gun for rewards like travel or gift cards. I have had over a million to 1.5M points sitting w/ SWA and over time I got real and started unloading them.

I'm not super concerned about SWA surviving, but things are not going to be ironed out for some time and I feel like my gift card redemptions were right before it hit the fan.

Seems like the next best option is Macys gift cards.

They closed what had become a dumpy Macy's in our town. There are 2 at a large mall in San Jose, but Mrs. Wingrider said no to Macy's gift cards. Who knows if Macy's will survive this since they were struggling before. I think she even has a couple of the cards still. We went with lots of Amazon, some Lowe's, Khol's, and restaurant cards that are part of larger brand mixes like Outback.

EDIT: I just looked at the Chase Rewards portal and there are Amazon GC's available there so it sounds like it's not Amazon pulling them for some reason.

You were lucky to redeem RD points for those gift cards. Now all they have are Macys, Staples and other 2nd tier vendor gift cards if you are a Chase SWA card holder.

I doubt Amazon would pull them - unless they were selling to Chase at a large discount - like I would guess some of the others might be doing.

Took me awhile to figure out what might the main reason why many airlines have pulled these cards from their portals. Everytime somebody gets a gift card, they airline has to PAY real cash to that merchant. With cash becoming a big issue for all airlines, they need to conserve. They will still of course allow free flights. By the way, some of those free flights end up with some paying passengers coming along, or for some airlines a shot at getting those other fees for seats, baggage, drinks, etc.